Should church leaders be vetted more than they are?

[nobspeople]

An article (see below) kicked off a thought: Should church leaders be (better) vetted before being offered a leadership role in a church or religious organization?

Independent of denomination, power intoxicates some. With power often times comes influence and, more to many peoples' liking, money. It's no surprise that churches can be ca$h cows. The bigger the church, many times, the more money it brings in. We've most all seen church pastors/leaders with private jets, Bentleys and so on. People like doctors often times can't afford such things. A quote from the article: "Caldwell used about $900,000 he received from the scheme to maintain his lifestyle and pay down credit cards and mortgages, according to the Justice Department. Caldwell has a master’s degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and had worked in the financial industry."

I've said it before and will say it again: religion is the oldest profession in human history IMO. And these mega-church leaders show, if it's not the oldest, it's one of the most profitable.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-megach ... 06983.html

The above made mad me TBH

For discussion, should potential church leaders be further vetted prior to being offered the position? And should a degree in business be enough for them to become a church leader?

[nobspeople]

[Replying to bjs1 in post #31]

You then treated those extremes as if they were normative

To quote yourself: Nah.
I never said they were normative, that's how you understood it. So kindly don't visit your poor interpretation on me.
I read an article and it caused me think which caused me to ask the question.
Nothing more than that no matter how much more you may wish there to be.
See? Very simple!

“Should potential church leaders be further vetted prior to being offered the position? And should a degree in business be enough for them to become a church leader?”

Correct.

The second question is a little silly, since virtually no church leaders have only a business degree.

I don't know who has what degree when it comes to church leaders.

Caldwell’s business degree was mentioned specifically because it was unusual.

I don't know that for sure. I suspect you don't either, unless you were the author of said article. Seems that's an assumption on your part. Which might be correct for all we know as it seems a logical conclusion. But I wouldn't parade that around as factual. But that's just me.

If you actually are interested in the topic,

As I'm not that interested in it (I don't much care what church picks what person as I don't attend any currently) past a general "hmmm I wonder...". But I'd think it is important to those who attend churches.

you might check in to how churches normally vet leaders and then start a new thread with more accurate information to frame the debate.

And I stated as much in this thread if you were to read through this thread.
So here we are, to discuss that with people who may know. And some people have had good input if you were to read through it all.